There are two parts to this invention, the first one of
which is known to be old and widely known to have
existed: scrolls.

So far as I know, no one publishes books in scroll format
any more. Nevertheless, the ordinary paper-book
publishing process could easily be adapted for producing
scrolls.
They already start with large rolls of paper that
are processed by modern printing presses. Just change
the
orientation of the printing to remove the need to cut the
paper into segments, and so the print can flow
seamlessly along the
length of the paper-roll.

Make cuts only near the beginning and the end of the
book.
Add appropriate scroll rods, although the first could be
added near the start of the printing process, so that the
scroll can be wound around that rod as fast as the
printed
continuous sheet exits the printer. If the last part of the
book is printed first, and the first part printed last, then
the rolled-up text on the scroll-rod will be fully prepared
for reading by scrolling. Perhaps put the whole thing
into
a nice carrying case, and then sell.

The second invention is something that ought to have
existed ages ago, but I never heard of such a thing,
before,
so....

We know that cranks and gears existed in ancient times,
and therefore there should have existed a device into
which one can insert the two rods of a scroll, separated
by
a length of unrolled scroll (perhaps 15-20 centimeters, or
6-8 inches),
and by turning the crank one can scroll through the book
quite efficiently. Move the crank from one scroll-rod to
the other, and the book can be re-wound for the next
person who wants to read it.

That's all.
---------- ------------
Well, that WAS all, until now, a few days after the
original post (it is now the 15th).

The above Idea doesn't say anything about the fact that I
only described printing on one side of the scroll. It has
occurred to me that we could arrange printing half the
book on each side, in a particular way.

Then, when the reader has finished half the book, the
scroll-holding device can be turned over, and the process
of scrolling through the 2nd half of the book, while
reading it, becomes the same action as rewinding the
first half of the book to the beginning.

The net result is that no one need to think about putting
extra effort into rewinding the scroll for the next reader
(and only half as much paper is needed for printing,
also).

A modification to the reading-device could be
appropriate, too. We could consider the basic thing to
consist of a rectangle of rods. The two longer rods
would be associated with the length of unscrolled paper,
and these rods would also extend past the points where
they connect to the other two rods.
|-----|
|
|
|-----|
(That ASCII sketch does not portray the whole rod at
right because we need a fixed-pitch font to do it
correctly.)

The scroll-rods are attached to the ends of the longer
rods. (In the ASCII sketch, the long left rod can double
as a hinge-pin, as described farther down.)

Now think about the rectangular space in the
middle, which the unscrolled paper would cover. If the
book was printed on only one side of the paper, it could
be fine to be an empty space.

But if the paper is printed on both sides, we probably
want to block light passing through the paper (hard to
read one side when you can also see the printing on the
other side), so we need an opaque rectangular plate to
fill that
empty space.

But when we flip the holder over to read the other side
of the scroll, that plate will be in the way. It needs to
be hinged on one edge, and latch-able on the other
edge. Now the plate can be unlatched, rotated around
the hinge-pin rod until the plate's other edge again
reaches the
rod to
which it can be latched again, and now the plate is again
blocking light, but not blocking our ability to read the
2nd half of the book.

Teletypes are roll fed with continuous stationery. If you're happy
with 1 character per second accompanied by the sound of a
truckload of spoons endlessly crashing into a vacuum cleaner
factory, this
is entirely bakeable.

The character set's limited, too. A new font means changing the
printhead.

Teletypes are a thing of the past! Get a receipt printer. They work on rolls, they're cheap, they're fast, and they're convenient. I'd definitely print out a few pages of a novel onto a scroll before hopping on the bus

[beanangel], player pianos did not exist in the era when
scrolls were the common format for books. Also, a player
piano automatically does the scrolling of a scroll, while the
gadget I described is hand-powered (and allows pausing of
reading at any time). The gadget is also lots smaller than a
player piano.

I suspect this would be difficult to implement with paper - if it were thin enough to make a small roll, it might tend to tear. However, there are now plastic films that are much tougher, and might make this practicable.

//there are now plastic films that are much tougher, and might make this practicable//

But then someone will suggest a bendable electronic plastic display for unlimited scrolling, and then someone will point out the extra curvyness adds nothing to the user experience, and we're back to tablets.

If you make the paper out of rubber you can use the scroll
handles (or your hands) to stretch out the images making
them look funny. Or, if you wanted to you could publish a
Victoria's Secret catalog this way and stretch vertically to
make them taller and even more model like.

At the time of writing this Idea, I had some thoughts about
the fact I was only talking about printing on one side of the
scroll. But now I know something better than leaving it
blank, and will add something to the main text.

Before modern tablet computers came along, before
handheld PDAs, before all that, and around the time I had
(more than one) Cambridge Z88 computers, I imagined that
in the future (thats now!) wed have portable computers
that had flexible displays, which ran a galley of text and
graphics flowing from top to bottom, and wed interact
with it as if it were a scroll.